


you may delay (but time will not)

by TolkienGirl



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, everyone has not enough time or too much, lyrically driven fic, study of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revolutions weren't fought in a day; they are fought everyday. (Hamilton, and time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you may delay (but time will not)

Wars aren’t made and meted out on the turning of gold or silver—or even tea.

Wars, like all the world, are slaves to time.

Time, it splits the air like a blade between ready, aim, and fire.

Time, it is of the essence.

Time, it passes, too fast, too slow—and this is blood dripping by the second, men falling by the moment, battles fought by the hour and day and month. Seasons change and the snow is stained with blood, spring comes and it bleeds too. Do they fight for land, or for time? Which is more precious, which more sacred?

Time, it runs out.

 

_Dying is easy, young man, living is hard._

Oh, God. Living takes time. And Alexander never has quite enough of that.

He could, Eliza thinks. _It would be enough_.

But Alexander writes, and the name Hamilton is stamped like a challenge on paper after paper.

_Rise up._

Revolutions weren’t fought in a day; they are fought every day.

 

 _Why do you write like you’re running out of time?_ she pleads, and if he had even a moment to answer he would tell her, _because I am._

He is always running.

 

 _Down for the count_ , Eliza is, when she falls in love with him. And then down, down, down—but she only stops counting when they move uptown.

 _Un, deux, trois,_ forevermore and nevermore.

 

Angelica knows about time. She knows just how much happens in a second, just how many years you can remember someone’s eyes.

_The conversation lasted two minutes, maybe three minutes…_

The fourth fundamental truth is that the past is set in stone, grave-yard heavy, a weight and a shadow even if history is forgotten.

Angelica knows everything about time, except how to turn it back.

 

Turn around and around again, hands on a clock, and is the world measured in years or terms or the length of an argument or the split-second of a mistake?

Time punishes all and praises few, and Alexander Hamilton has a million things he hasn’t done, and a million things he _has_ done that no one will speak of—and time only bends to his will at the mark of _ten_ , when he can see quite clearly that his time is finished.

 

 _Hamilton doesn’t hesitate_ — _he wastes no time_ —

But time has its vengeance. It takes, and it takes, and it takes.

 

Take time, take the floor, take your shot.

Aaron Burr waits, and he waits, and he waits.

When he takes his shot, it’s the wrong one.

 


End file.
